caning

I do not know what this young woman, who was lashed to the boards, did to upset my mother (who just so happens to be the dictator of a small country) so badly, but my mom handed me the riding crop and with a face contorted in wrath, she screamed at me, "BEND HER OVER!"

what does it mean?

Lizzy and I went for a run last night down by the Back Bay. We stopped and rested at a little wooden fence looking out at the marshlands and chatted. The view stretching out before us was beautiful. The sunlight glistening on the water and wildlife frolicking on the sand truly spoke to the magnificence of all of God's creations. As we talked I had this incredible urge to kiss her, but knew that I should not for some reason. I fought it the entire time and was proud of myself for not doing it, even though I had no idea why.

As we turn to leave that spectacular place, not more than fifteen feet from me, out of clear blue skies, a violence bolt of lightening strikes the ground. It was brilliant and bright! I felt the heat from this dazzling display of nature as it singed my hair. The sound was deafening and I could not believe what had just happened. No more than twenty seconds later, another bolt struck a little further off. For some reason I was not afraid, but stood as a storm of lightening struck repeatedly all around us. I was in complete awe and basked in the beauty of it all. I was really enjoying myself and smiled at this aweso experience. Truly something to behold, but why was it happening all around me?

street performers and construction in croatia

Kim and I spent what seemed like hours today looking for our hostel. We were wandering the streets of old town and could not seem to figure out where the place that we had reservations was (little did we know, it was actually outside of the walls of the city up the hill.) As we were wandering the streets, we came upon some street performers and among them was none other than Tyler Waldron. He was doing some incredibly lame magic tricks using playing cards and making no money whatsoever. As we walked by, he started begging us for a donation, but there was no way that I was going to pay for such a poor assortment of tricks.

I decided to take it upon myself to teach him a cool trick that he could use, so I asked for a card from his deck. I took it a flicked it sending it spinning it the air, only to have it turn and arc back to me like a boomerang, whereupon I threw it again to have it turn a little circle and come back. I explained that it was all in the wrist and the flick, and that he should use this trick to make money. I then showed him the advanced trick that I could do, making the card fly a figure 8 around us. Tyler tried, but every time he threw the card it would just sail away and hit some onlooker. After showing him repeatedly and he still could not get it, I told him to quit his day job and find something new.

Kim and I continued on our way and searched some more. No one spoke any English, so our search was that much harder. We managed to run into my home students who lived in Croatia and they offered to let us build our own dwelling because that would be easier, right? They had an empty lot next to their house, so we grabbed some wood and started building. There was a hardware store on that street, so I went looking for parts to a broken sander that I had, got it all fixed up, and came back to continue the building. Everything was going so smoothly and it seemed like we finished our four story house in record time. We forgot to add stairs, so every floor had a ladder and each floor was successively shorter than the one below it. It must have been because we got lazier and lazier as we built it up higher. I climbed the ladder to the fourth floor and realized the the door was too small to fit through. So much for my penthouse room with a view. I guess I'll just settle for the third floor.

awkward

Just wanted to relay a very awkward situation that I was in recently. I was guarding at the porch in Newport (21st street for those of you who do not know.) I had a note that I had written to Stephanie Leupold, the President of my company's wife, explaining my feelings about Guy Dickson. I had them in the pocket of some shorts I was holding while wading out in the water and I heard her call to me, so I decided to throw the shorts to her and let her get the note out. The shorts landed on the ground right by her, but some other man picked up the shorts. When I looked, I saw that it was Guy and he was dancing around not giving up the shorts. He pulled the note out and read it, then handed it to her looking dejected. I had gotten out of the water and was sitting at my "tower" again, when he came over to ask me if I wanted some ice cream and if he could have a hug. Can you say "awkward?"

adventures in croatia

For those of you who have never hot-air ballooned before, I highly recommend it. My best friend Jason took me on a hot-air balloon trip to Croatia and the views were spectacular. As we floated effortlessly over the national parks and lakes, we could see the sea in the distance. Upon seeing a busy little stretch of coast, we decided to land and check out the scene. I think Jason is much better at flying the hot-air balloon than landing it because we over shot our target and ran into a fence when landing. When we landed our balloon, we had to check into the country at the local government building that was no more than the back of a trailer. They told us that we had to catch a boat to the only island that had the authority to issue visa's, so out we header. We decided to swim to the island because it would be that much more adventurous and began the swim (it was only a couple miles anyway.) Halfway through the swim the boat drove by and we hitched a ride because we had already had our fill. Down the channel we speed, turning between tiny islands with the wind on our bare scalps, racing the other boats for fun, until we saw the island that we were headed to. There was a ramp in the water right before the island that water-skiers used to launch off of and we were headed right toward it!

We hit the jump at full speed and flew into the air. We had at least four seconds of hang-time and landed back in the water with a thud. I turned to give Jason a high-five, but he had gotten tossed out of the boat and the boat was not slowing. It pulled up to the island and I got off to get my visa, figuring that Jason would just swim in. There were all sorts of colorful characters there. There were African tribes people, a whole herd of elementary school kids, the circus act with all of their animals, and random people dressed up in Mardi Gras and Halloween attire. It was quite a scene. Deciding that this would be better to experience with Jason, I went to sit under the shade of a tree while waiting for him to swim in. The beaches and the water were lovely that day and I cannot wait to go back. I will probably make my way back there some day. Who knows, maybe I will go next week!

boring

Yesterday I was surfing with Ber. We sat there as stared at the ocean as a 15 minute lull passed us by without a single wave. I turned and saw a lifeguard trunk parked at the 36th street tower, so I paddled in to say hello. I said hello and then we just stood there looking at Lake Newport.

I never said that my life wasn't boring at times.

back in the day of cdm polo

For those of you who played water polo, do you remember those 5.30am workouts? Pulling into the high school parking lot when it was still dark out. Seeing SAABs with "Fly Girls" stickers on them. Watching me pull up on my motorcycle with sidecar, oh so coolly? Going into the team room in our speedos and huddling on the floor to keep warm, while breathing in the mildewed, chlorinated carpet, just waiting for Vargas to come in and yell at us?

I remember it like it was this morning.